About
Hailed as “superb” by the Philadelphia Inquirer, Dr. Matthew Brower is a pianist, coach, and educator who brings vision and sensitivity to a variety of genres, from classical piano, chamber music, opera, and art song to musical theatre and jazz. At age eleven, he made his New York City debut, performing an original composition at Carnegie Hall (Weill Recital Hall). He has since appeared in many prestigious venues throughout the U.S. and China, including Carnegie Hall (Zankel Hall), the Kimmel Center, and the Shanghai Oriental Art Center, and he has been featured on WRTI, Philadelphia’s classical radio station. Matthew has performed with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia as well as members of the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and faculty from numerous leading conservatories. He is Artist Affiliate in Piano at Emory University, where he teaches a piano studio and accompanies students, faculty recitals, and ensembles.
Since 2013, Matthew has been a member of 6-WIRE, an ensemble-in-residence at the University of Delaware. Founded by violinist Xiang Gao and erhuist Cathy Yang, the group combines traditional and contemporary Eastern and Western musical styles and has commissioned works by notable composers such as Bright Sheng, Mark Hagerty, and Jennifer Barker. They have been honored to perform for Vice President Joe Biden, Delaware Governor Jack Markell, the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, and at universities around the world, including Georgetown University and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. 6-WIRE has collaborated with performers, composers, and visual artists from China, Japan, India, Turkey, Israel, Afghanistan, and Syria, including members of the Silk Road Ensemble. In June 2018, they released their debut album, 6th Sense, and in June 2021, they released 6-WIRE on 57th, showcasing music from their sold-out 2019 Carnegie Hall concert. Both albums were produced by Grammy-winning sound engineer Andreas Meyer and 6th Sense was featured in Gramophone. 6-WIRE is managed by California Artists Management.
Matthew has performed with the Dekalb Symphony Orchestra on numerous occasions, including a Fireside Chat event featuring Dr. Bernice King. With the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, he has appeared as their principal pianist for live film screenings of La La Land and Grease at the Mann Center as well as a program of Belgian music for the Hon. Dirk Wouters, Belgian Ambassador to the United States, at the Kreeger Museum in Washington, D.C.
As a vocal collaborator and choral accompanist, Matthew has held positions at Opera Philadelphia, Westminster Choir College, the Curtis Institute Summerfest Young Artist Voice Program, the Centre for Opera Studies in Italy, Opera in the Ozarks, the Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia, the University of Pennsylvania, The College of New Jersey, and Oxford College of Emory University. He is also the pianist for a new musical about Holocaust refugees entitled Shanghai Sonatas. Matthew currently coaches vocalists at Emory and most recently accompanied the Emory Concert Choir for the spring 2025 semester.
Matthew is a Nationally Certified Teacher of Music by the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) and he chaired and presented on a panel at the 2021 MTNA National Conference entitled “Guiding the Next Generation of Collaborators: Career Paths in Collaborative Piano.” He has also performed and presented research at the College Music Society’s regional conferences, including his lecture, “Including Collaborative Training in the Piano Studio”, at their 2018 Northeast Regional Conference.
Matthew received his Doctor of Musical Arts and Master of Music degrees in Collaborative Piano from the University of Michigan under the tutelage of renowned pianist Martin Katz. He received his Bachelor’s degree in Piano Performance with a minor in Piano Pedagogy from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where he was awarded the Oberlin Piano Faculty Prize in Accompanying. Matthew held previous academic positions at Agnes Scott College and Washington College, where he was Visiting Assistant Professor of Piano and co-founded the Washington College Piano Festival.